One of the first major financial commitments college students and young professionals make is signing an apartment lease. What many of them don’t realize is that the credit reporting system in the United States does not include on-time rent payments as part of their credit history.

Scott and Matt Johanek, recent graduates from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, learned this the hard way but were smart enough to do something about it. They created DROPP, a web application that helps people establish and build credit worthiness through monthly payments that traditional credit reporting agencies ignore when compiling credit histories. These payments include such significant expenses as rent and childcare. What’s more, DROPP makes all this possible without the need for credit cards.

Destination: Disruption

The fact that so many major payments are ignored by the credit bureaus has long frustrated renters who pay on time, month after month and year after year. Renting rock stars ­thus live with an incomplete credit history, which negatively impacts them by indicating to loan officers that those individuals lack fiscal responsibility and should not be allowed to borrow for a home or car.

DROPP intends to disrupt the broken credit reporting industry, helping college students and young professionals build creditworthiness. As Scott explains: “DROPP solves the problem of having many of your monthly payments thrown in the trash. We instead recycle these once forgotten payments into a report that allows an individual to show their true financial picture during times such as applying for an apartment, or getting a car or home loan.”

Why DROPP?

“DROPP” is an acronym for Digital Record of Payment Platform. As such, DROPP helps renters compile a more complete credit history by recording their online payments of rent and other payments made outside the conventional bank/lender system — capturing peer-to-peer and peer-to-business payments on the road to establishing personal creditworthiness.

These payments include not only rent and childcare, but also smartphone and internet fees, car insurance, gym memberships and health insurance. DROPP allows users to show proof of the payments they already make on a regular basis to showcase their whole payment picture.

DROPP’s technology allows anyone to establish and build financial trust via their payments, with DROPP acting as an independent scorekeeper that logs the timeliness of each payment. The company is currently signing up users for access to a private beta app.

DROPP has been nominated by Acumium as one of “Madison’s Most Innovative Companies” and will compete against other companies at neXXpo 2017. Learn more.

Acumium Innovation

Acumium worked with DROPP to create transaction-based, easy-to-use software that works seamlessly with both mobile and desktop platforms. It is anchored by an interface that appeals to young adults, while also conveying professionalism, credibility and responsibility to lending agencies and other people evaluating credit reports.

Acumium takes the time to understand at a deep level the problems their clients’ products and services aim to solve. Which is how the company’s team of technology experts can arrive at the most powerful and effective solutions.